CVE-2026-120632: CGI versions before 5.00 for Perl allow CPU exhaustion via a backtracking regex on the XForms
Source GCVE Database
Not known to be exploited : upgrade to 5.00 soon.
Data as of 4 Nov 2026, 02:00 UTC
Rated High by Threat Radar's AI analysis · CVSS not yet scored by NVD
Thin evidence
One scorer or none- Patch
- Available – fixed in 5.00
Exploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 3 Nov 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors
A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 3 Nov 2026.
What to do
Upgrade CGI (Perl module) to 5.00.
Affected software
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| CGI | Affected
| Fixed in
|
CPANCGIpkg:cpan/CGIOther threats | Affected
| Fixed in
|
Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.
AI-suggested
If you cannot patch yet, consider mitigating by filtering or blocking suspicious multipart/related Content-Type headers or limiting request processing resources to prevent CPU exhaustion.
Description
CGI versions before 5.00 for Perl contain a vulnerability where a specially crafted POST request with a multipart/related Content-Type can cause CPU exhaustion. This occurs due to a backtracking regular expression used to extract boundary and start parameters, which can lead to cubic time complexity on certain headers without requiring a request body.